


Memories of a Pyre

by piratesPencil



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Betrayal, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Friendship, Gobber and Valka's Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Memories, Nostalgia, Parenthood, Stoick's death, post httyd2, pre httyd3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25209844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratesPencil/pseuds/piratesPencil
Summary: “It’s good to have you back, Valka,” Gobber said, his voice low and scratchy, from the laughter and from the threat of tears.“It’s good to be back,” Valka said. “Despite everything, it is. I only wish it could have been the three of us, together, for just a little longer.”Gobber and Valka reconnect, through shared grief and shared memories.
Relationships: Gobber the Belch & Valka, Gobber the Belch/Stoick the Vast, Stoick the Vast/Valka
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	1. Hearth

The fire crackled in the hearth, logs slipping against each other as the flame burned low. Gobber leaned forward, prodding at the coals with his hook, then closed his eyes with a sigh. The glow of Stoick’s funeral pyre still burned through his mind, no matter where he looked.

It had only been days—since Stoick, since Drago, since Hiccup became chief. It felt like years. It felt like seconds.

The door banged open, and Gobber looked up to see Valka sweep inside, bringing a gust of cold, rainy night air with her. It was rare to see her without her dragon in tow, but Stoick’s house was too small for that giant.

She slammed the door against the rain and then stood with her back pressed to the door, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

“You alright there?” Gobber asked, and she jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Oh! Gobber. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect… Is Hiccup awake?”

Gobber shrugged. “He left with Astrid hours ago. Hopefully they’re at her place and not out somewhere in this nasty weather.”

Valka’s eyes widened. “I should go look for them. Shouldn’t I?”

Gobber shook his head. “Ah, they’ll be fine. They got used to being on their own out on Dragon’s Edge. They can take care of themselves.”

“Dragon’s Edge?” Valka asked, casting a worried glance at the door, as though she was considering leaping back out into the storm despite Gobber’s advice.

“I’m sure Hiccup will tell you all about it when he gets a chance,” Gobber said.

Valka paused, and then turned back to face him. The look she wore was so sad, so full of loss and longing, that Gobber almost had to look away.

“I have so much to learn about him, don’t I?” she said. “I missed so much.”

Gobber leaned forward and patted the furs he was sitting on in front of the hearth. “Sit,” he said.

Valka hesitated for a moment, and then she stepped away from the door and joined Gobber on the floor.

The way that Valka moved made her seem almost uncanny, like in these past twenty years she’d become something less human and more dragon. Maybe she had. It certainly seemed like Hiccup was headed in that direction, sometimes.

“He’s just like you, you know,” Gobber said, watching as Valka crouched down, her knees pulled up to her chest.

Valka smiled slightly, then shook her head, her eyes on the low flames of the hearth.

“That’s what I thought, when I met him,” she said. She reached for the poker and began to stir the coals methodically. “When he showed up with Toothless, and I found out that Hiccup, that _my son_ , rode dragons instead of killing them.”

She sighed, shook her head. “But then I saw him _lead_ them. His friends, this village. I saw him face Drago without an ounce of hesitation. I’ve only known him for a few days, Gobber, but I already know that Hiccup is so much more like Stoick than like me.”

“Hm,” Gobber said. He reached for the poker and took it gently from Valka’s hands, before her stirring could put the fire out. “You should’ve seen him when he was younger. That kid had _Valka_ written all over him. I don’t think Stoick could stand it.”

Valka let out a little snort, and Gobber thought she was laughing, until he looked over and saw the tears glistening down her cheeks. Oh, gods, he was terrible at this.

“I _should_ have seen him,” she said. “I should have been here.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Gobber said. “He turned out okay, didn’t he?”

He reached out and placed a hand on Valka’s shoulder. She reached up and placed a hand over his. She had Hiccup’s hands—small and lithe and nicked with scars.

“You’re right,” she said. “Would he have turned out any better with me around? You know I’ve never been good with people.”

“Your words, not mine,” Gobber said, shrugging slightly. He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, though.

She looked over at him and sniffed, her smile watery and thin.

“I feel torn down the middle, Gobber. One moment, I can’t _believe_ I ever left, and the next moment I’m sure it was the best choice I ever made.” She shook her head. “What kind of mother does that make me?”

“You’re more than just a mother, Valka. You’ve always been more than most of us. When Stoick married you, I think he knew he couldn’t hold onto you forever. I think you probably knew that, too. That you couldn’t just settle down.”

Valka shook her head, but she was still smiling slightly. “Maybe I did.”

She turned, so she was facing Gobber instead of the hearth, and crossed her legs under her. “Did you know, too?” she asked. “Is that why you never gave up on him, even when he married me?”

Gobber scoffed, but he suddenly couldn’t meet her eyes. “I haven’t the foggiest what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t pretend with me, Gobber. You live here, don’t you?”

Gobber dropped his hand from Valka’s shoulder, ran his fingers over the fur they sat on. Stoick’s furs, on Stoick’s floor. This was Stoick’s house—now Hiccup’s, really—but it had been years, _decades_ , since Gobber had slept anywhere else.

He still had his family’s house, but it had become more of a storehouse for the smithy than a home. He hadn’t truly lived in his own house since Hiccup was a baby.

After Valka had disappeared, all those years ago, Gobber had moved in with Stoick, just to help take care of Hiccup while Stoick tried to pick up the pieces of the life that Valka had left him with. It was only supposed to be temporary, just helping out an old friend.

But Gobber had never really left.

“You could say that,” Gobber said. He didn’t know if he’d stay in this house, now that Stoick was gone. He couldn’t imagine moving back into his old place now, but he didn’t know if he belonged in this house anymore.

“Thank you, Gobber,” Valka said, reaching up to touch Gobber’s cheek, so gently. “Really. For being what Stoick needed. What Hiccup needed. What I couldn’t be.”

“Now, I wouldn’t say _that_ ,” Gobber said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.

Gobber had never been one for introspection, but there was a part of him that had always felt guilty, as though he’d been trying to take over Valka’s place in Stoick and Hiccup’s lives all these years. Hearing Valka acknowledge it so plainly brought back that old guilt like a bright flame.

“I’m not mad, Gobber,” Valka said, as though she could read his thoughts. With those piercing dragon eyes, maybe she could. “You all thought I was dead. I could have come back, but I chose not to.”

She sighed, let her hand drop from Gobber’s face and into her lap. “It’s horrible to admit, but most of the time, I tried not to think about Stoick and Hiccup. It was too hard, too painful, to remember the choice I’d made. But when I did think about them, I hoped that they weren’t alone, that they had someone. And, really, I hoped it would be you.”

Gobber’s eyes widened, and then he shook his head, laughing slightly. “There you go again. You’re too good for us, Valka,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Valka parroted back at him.

Gobber snorted, and Valka snorted, and then they were both laughing, that sort of desperate belly laugh that bubbled out of you when the only other option was to cry.

When their laughter subsided, Valka was leaning against Gobber’s side, her head on his shoulder. He reached an arm around her, holding her tight.

“It’s good to have you back, Valka,” he said, his voice low and scratchy, from the laughter and from the threat of tears.

“It’s good to be back,” Valka said. “Despite everything, it is. I only wish it could have been the three of us, together, for just a little longer.”

 _The three of us_. Gobber, Valka, and Stoick. Inseparable, once upon a lifetime ago.

“Me too,” he said, softly.

Valka settled herself more comfortably against Gobber’s side and closed her eyes.

“Tell me about him, Gobber,” she said. “Tell me a story about when he was young.”

“You know all his stories already,” Gobber laughed.

“Tell me anyways.”

“Hmm.” Gobber closed his eyes, too. Still, burning brighter than any other memory, was Stoick’s funeral pyre, glowing red and gold across the sea.

He forced the memory aside, forced himself to look back, as far back as he could remember.

“Have I ever told you about the time Stoick and Alvin and I tied Spitelout to an angry boar and set it loose in the village?”

“Yes,” Valka said with a laugh. “But tell me again.”

“Spitelout was only a wee babe at the time, only a year or two old. The rest of us were just wee things, too, but you don’t have to be old to be mean, and Stoick _hated_ his baby cousin. Needed all the attention for himself, even back then.”

Valka laughed softly. “Poor Spitelout.”

Gobber scoffed. “Clearly age has addled your memory of our dear friend Spitelout. Nobody who knows Spitelout would ever say _poor Spitelout_.”

“He was only a babe.”

“Eh.” Gobber shrugged. “Point is, Alvin had found a boar caught in some brambles behind his house, and the beast was _livid_. So of course he ran and got Stoick and me to show it off.”

Gobber continued his story, and Valka laughed and sighed and chided at all the right times. It was a story they both knew well, a story that Stoick had told many times in their youth, usually with a laughing Alvin and an indignant Spitelout in the room.

It was still hard to believe that there had been a time when the five of them had been that close. And they never would be again. Not without Stoick.


	2. Youth

Gobber and Stoick and Alvin had grown up together, had been friends before they could remember. Spitelout was a few years younger than Stoick, but once he was old enough to run and play and fight with the rest of them, he’d joined their little gang, too.

They’d been little terrors, the four of them, running around Berk sowing chaos wherever they went, itching for their first chance to kill a dragon. They’d been fiercely competitive with each other, too, Stoick and Alvin especially. Always trying to one up each other in everything they did, from pranking to fighting to dragon killing.

But for all of their competitiveness, Stoick and Alvin had been closer than any of them. They were two sides of the same coin, pushing and pulling at each other but never far apart. If you saw Stoick out in the fields yak tipping, Alvin was probably on lookout. If you caught Alvin sneaking into the dragon arena after dark, Stoick had probably beaten him to it.

Maybe there was a reality out there, somewhere in the Nine Realms, where Stoick and Alvin’s push and pull dynamic had strengthened their bond as they grew older. Maybe, if things had turned out differently, Alvin could have been Stoick’s right hand man, his confidant, his advisor, his best friend.

But this was not that reality. Instead, as they grew older, Stoick and Alvin’s personalities and worldviews had started to clash more and more. It was a gradual thing—they were still friends, but their childhood closeness ebbed away as they grated more and more at each other’s edges.

And maybe Gobber had been partly to blame. He’d never been able to shake that thought, even after all these years. At some point, Gobber went from being just a member of Stoick’s little gang to becoming his closest friend, and then something more. By the time they were teenagers, Stoick and Gobber were dating.

Alvin had never begrudged them their relationship. They were far from the only same sex couple on Berk, and for all their closeness, Alvin had never seemed to be interested in Stoick that way. But, without ever meaning to, Gobber had become one more wedge between Stoick and Alvin.

* * *

Stoick was still young when his father died, barely a man when he was thrust into the position of chief. Without Gobber, he might have turned to Alvin for support, for counsel. Instead, he turned to Gobber.

In retrospect, it was clear that Alvin’s frustration with Stoick had grown steadily over the years, especially once Stoick became chief. But at the time, all of Alvin’s complaints, his insubordination, had felt normal. They were all friends, after all, and Stoick and Alvin had always pushed each other’s limits.

And then there was Valka. Beautiful, mysterious, foreign Valka, who was a young woman when she arrived on Berk from somewhere far in the East. She’d spent her whole life traveling, first with her parents and then on her own. She knew things about the world—and things about _dragons_ —that none of them knew, and her arrival shook Berk to its core.

Some on Berk thought that Stoick should send her away. She was too foreign, too wild.

But Stoick had adopted his father’s war against the dragons with a vengeance, and he believed that Valka could be a key to finally, decisively defeating their enemy. Of course, Valka’s approach to dragons was considerably softer than what Berk was used to, but Stoick still believed she could be useful.

And so did Alvin. As the years passed, there were few things that Alvin and Stoick agreed on, but they agreed on this—that the dragons had to be defeated, once and for all, and that theirs would be the generation to do it.

So they all welcomed Valka into their little group—Stoick, Alvin, Gobber, even Spitelout. She had never intended to stay on Berk, not for long, but she grew close to them despite herself.

* * *

There were many happy years after that, and Gobber remembered those years as some of the best of his life. He and Stoick had still be a couple then—not married yet, but Gobber had been sure it would happen when Stoick was ready. He hadn’t been in a rush, content to stand by the chief’s side, with Spitelout and Alvin and Valka alongside them.

Later, Gobber would wonder if Valka had been the reason that Stoick had hesitated to marry Gobber. Maybe, even back then, Stoick had been torn between them.

He’d never been able to bring himself to ask. Now, he would never know.

But regardless, the five of them had been happy. Sometimes, when Gobber saw Hiccup and his dragon riders, he saw what he might have had. What Stoick’s little gang could have been, if they’d had someone like Hiccup among them, someone who could bring them all together instead of pushing them apart.

Maybe they could have still found a way to have what Hiccup’s gang had, if Gobber hadn’t gotten hurt.

These days, Gobber told the story of how he’d lost his arm and leg with bravado. It was a tale he’d spent years spinning for the village youths, a war story to inspire them to fight back against their greatest enemies. He told the story less, now that the dragons were friends instead of foe, but it was still a story that he didn’t mind trotting out, late at night in the great hall, when all the best war stories were told.

He was still working on trying to get Hiccup to turn his missing leg into an epic tale, but for all his pride, Hiccup had never been one for boasting. Still, Gobber hoped he could bring the kid around—he’d always thought that the best way to deal with trauma was to turn it into something you could be proud of.

Because, all those years ago, losing his arm and his leg _had_ been traumatic, though he might not have had the words for it at the time. The injuries themselves were traumatic, of course, but so was everything that had surrounded those months of his youth, when the escalating tension between Stoick and Alvin had taken their friendly rivalry and turned it into outright hostility.

* * *

Alvin was no longer simply disobeying Stoick, but was actively trying to stir the rest of the village into insubordination. Gobber could still remember the feeling of being constantly torn between his loyalty to Stoick and his friendship with Alvin, and even with Spitelout, who seemed to be leaning further and further in Alvin’s direction as the years passed.

If he’d had to choose a side, Gobber would have chosen Stoick’s in a heartbeat. But he’d still hoped, at the time, that he wouldn’t have to.

So he’d blinded himself to the truth, let his hope obscure what was right in front of him, and he knew that Stoick had done the same. And maybe that blindness, that hope for something better, was the very thing that had allowed Alvin to go so far, to attempt his coup.

Alvin had waited for a night when the dragons were at their worst, ransacking the village with abandon. Gobber could still remember that night with vivid detail, all the buildings burning orange and bright. He remembered the sight of Alvin and Stoick, fighting back to back, a perfect team even then. Gobber remembered feeling _hopeful_ at the sight of them. If they could still fight in harmony, then maybe they could still live in harmony.

And then Alvin turned to him, to Gobber, his dark eyes flashing in the firelight. And Alvin had smiled.

Gobber had smiled back, but his blood had run cold. Maybe it was a premonition—Gothi had always said that Gobber had the potential to train under her, if only he was more disciplined—or maybe it was just something in the way that Alvin bared his teeth. But Gobber knew, in that moment, that something was wrong.

He turned, instinctively, and there it was, the biggest Monstrous Nightmare he’d ever seen, screaming down out of the sky and right towards him.

He raised his shield, readied his sword, and in seconds, Alvin was beside him. He’d thought, naively, that Alvin was there to help. Stoick must have thought the same, because he left the Nightmare to Gobber and Alvin with a quick nod, then threw himself at a pack of Gronckles who were diving for the armory.

He wasn’t watching when Alvin leaned towards Gobber, conspiratorial, and then punched him so hard he saw stars. He wasn’t watching when Alvin snagged the sword from Gobber’s hand as his grip loosened in shock, wasn’t watching when Alvin pressed his lips close to Gobber’s ear and whispered, “Sorry, old friend.”

He wasn’t watching as Alvin swept his leg out under Gobber’s, sending him sprawling at the enraged Nightmare’s feet.

Stoick might have looked over when the Monstrous Nightmare’s jaws closed around Gobber’s arm, might have heard Gobber scream, might have come running. But Gobber didn’t remember anything else about that night, not clearly.

He learned, later, that Alvin and Stoick had fought off the Nightmare together, though they hadn’t managed to kill it. He learned that Stoick had assumed, in the heat of battle, that the Nightmare getting the best of Gobber was an accident, that Alvin was only trying to help him.

And Gobber knew, though Alvin never said so, that Alvin had intended for Gobber to die that night. Because if he had died, then Alvin’s ploy, his final betrayal of the friendship of their youth, might very well have succeeded.


	3. Fracture

Later, Gobber would hear the story of that night told over and over, by Stoick, by Valka, even by Alvin himself. Every telling was slightly different, tinged by bias, but the details were the same.

When the dragons were gone, flying victorious back to their nest in the light of early dawn, Alvin climbed the steps up to the Great Hall. He stood in front of the imposing wooden doors and looked down at the scene below him.

The village, still burning around them, more rubble than homes. Vikings in chaos—running to put out fires, to tend to the wounded, to rescue what livestock and food stores they had left.

And Gobber, unconscious, bleeding out in Stoick’s arms. Someone had run to get Gothi, but Gobber was not the only one wounded that night, so Valka was crouched by Stoick’s side, trying her best to stop the bleeding.

And, looking down at all of them, Alvin had spoken.

“Friends!” he’d shouted, and those who could spare a glance his way looked up. “Look at what has become of us. Our village, once again, in ruins. Our enemies grow ever stronger. And our _great Chief Stoick_ …” He spat the words, heavy with sarcasm. “On his knees, his love dying in his arms. If our chief cannot even protect his partner, how can he hope to protect any of us?”

“Alvin!” Stoick had shouted, his voice as loud and commanding as ever, but still kneeling, still with Gobber in his arms. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we have done things your way long enough, _Chief_ ,” Alvin sneered. “I’ve tried to help you, Stoick. _I_ suggested we start trapping dragons, not one or two for training, but by the dozens, by the _hundreds_. I said we should turn them on each other. Why risk everything to fight the beasts when we could let our enemies destroy themselves?”

“Stand down, Alvin!” Stoick shouted. “I’ve told you this before—your plans are senseless and egocentric. It would never work!”

“Oh?” Alvin raised an eyebrow. “Your precious Valka says otherwise. She claims there are dragon trappers of all sorts beyond our shores. Why not follow their lead?”

“That is not what I stand for, Alvin!” Valka shouted, her hands slick with Gobber’s blood, her face as red with fury as Stoick’s. “Do not pretend to speak for me!”

“Oh, Valka, Valka, Valka,” Alvin said, shaking his head. “Don’t you see? We’re on the same side, you and I. The way Berk handles its little dragon problem is _barbaric._ We’ve been doing things the same way for nearing four hundred years, and Stoick wants to keep doing things this way… why? To please his dead father?”

“Do not speak of my father, Alvin!” Stoick shouted. He stood up, then, resting Gobber gently against Valka’s side. “Do not speak another _word_ , or you will stand trial for treachery!”

But Alvin had only laughed. “ _Treachery?_ Stoick, I have always been your _humble_ servant. After all, who was at your lover’s side tonight when you couldn’t be bothered to protect him?”

“Gobber might _die_ ,” Stoick shouted. He was marching up the steps to the Great Hall, now, fists tight and angry at his sides.

“Because _you_ insist we fight these beasts like _animals_ instead of using any strategy at all,” Alvin said.

He was still so calm, so confident in his words, as Stoick reached him at the top of the steps. He’d left his axe with Gobber and Valka below, but Stoick pulled back his fist, and Alvin readied himself. They might have fought then, but Spitelout appeared, stepped between them, put a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Not here,” he said, and it might have been the bravest thing he’d ever done. “Not now. We hold a council tomorrow.”

And maybe it was because they each thought Spitelout was on their side, or maybe it was the years of friendship they couldn’t quite shake, but both Alvin and Stoick stepped back.

“Tomorrow,” Stoick said, voice deep and commanding. “You stand trial.”

“ _Council_ ,” Spitelout snapped.

Alvin shrugged, then turned back to the people below them. “I will let you all think on my words,” he’d said. “But know that I would do things very differently on Berk.”

* * *

If Gobber had died that night, they might have a held a council the next day, as Spitelout said. And that council might have turned on Stoick. Because, for all his treachery, Alvin was right—the village had been growing restless for years, for _generations_. The war with the dragons seemed endless, unwinnable, and each new chief handled it as his father had—they fought, and they lost, and they searched for the nest in futility, and they fought some more.

Even if Alvin’s plans didn’t work, at least they were something _new_ , and even the most stubborn Viking needs something new, eventually.

But Gobber didn’t die. He woke in Gothi’s hut in the wee hours of the morning, with only one arm and drowning in pain.

He’d been horrified at the sight of his bandaged stump, hadn’t really been able to process what he was seeing.

(And maybe that was why he’d been quick to make a leg for Hiccup before he woke up from his fight with the Red Death, so that when he did wake up, Hiccup might not feel quite so defenseless, quite so disoriented.)

Before Gobber could fully grasp what had happened, Stoick was upon him, holding him, kissing him, crying.

“You’re awake,” Stoick had whispered, and then he’d laughed, and from somewhere behind him, Gobber had heard Valka laughing with relief, as well.

For the briefest of moments, Gobber had allowed himself to bask in that sense of relief.

And then it had come back to him, all at once. Alvin. _Sorry, old friend._

He’d sat up, disoriented and woozy, but he’d pushed through it, grabbed desperately at the front of Stoick’s shirt with the one arm he had left.

“Alvin,” he’d choked out. “He wanted me dead.”

Gobber had seen the look that passed between Stoick and Valka. He hadn’t fully understood it at the time, hadn’t yet known about Alvin’s proclamation in front of the Great Hall, but Gobber’s words had cemented things—instead of a council, they would be holding a trial that day.

Of course, Alvin fought back. He claimed that Gobber was misremembering the situation, his brain addled by fear and blood loss. When that didn’t work, he claimed that Gobber was lying, spouting libel to protect Stoick.

But Gobber was well-liked in the village. Sure, he could be a troublemaker at times, but he was an apprentice to the town blacksmith, a student of Gothi’s, the chief’s partner. And he was _friendly_ —there were few on Berk who wouldn’t stop to chat with Gobber when they crossed paths, who didn’t know him well.

Those who might have considered turning on their chief, the son of a long and unbroken line of Berk ancestry, pulled back when Gobber came forward. Even Spitelout, Stoick’s cousin, second in line for the Berk throne, who might have become Alvin’s figurehead chief if Stoick was ousted, didn’t choose Alvin’s side.

When Stoick declared Alvin a traitor and exiled him from Berk, Stoick’s word was law. Every soul in the village came to see Alvin thrown unceremoniously onto a small boat and set out to sea.

* * *

Sometimes, Gobber wondered if Stoick had made the right choice, if they’d all made the right choice, letting Stoick decide Alvin’s fate so quickly, so decisively, so purely out of anger.

Thanks to Hiccup, of course, Alvin and Stoick had made peace. Gobber would tell Valka about that, too, when the time was right. Maybe a reunion was in order, though Gobber wasn’t sure Valka would be as excited to reunite with Alvin as she had been to reunite with Stoick.

But had it really been worth the decades of war with the Outcasts, even if that war had eventually ended? If Stoick and Alvin had met each other halfway, could Berk have solved its dragon problems earlier, long before Hiccup and his friends had to?

Maybe Hiccup could have held onto his youth for just a bit longer. Maybe they could have dealt with Drago sooner. Maybe, somehow, Stoick would still be here.

_Stoick._ Suddenly, that funeral pyre was burning orange and bright behind Gobber’s eyelids again. His eyes snapped open.

He’d started to drift off to sleep, lost in memories that felt at once ancient and achingly fresh.

Valka was still leaning against his side, humming softly as she poked at the low coals of the hearth. Outside, the storm still howled, and again Gobber hoped that Hiccup and Astrid were safe inside somewhere.

Gobber shifted a bit, yawned. Valka looked up at him and smiled slightly.

“Time for bed?” she asked.

Gobber shook his head. “Think I’ll stay here for the night. It’s been hard to sleep, these past few nights.”

Valka let out her breath in a long sigh. “I know,” she said. “I want to return to my dragons, Gobber. I want to return to my _home_. I haven’t been away from the home of the Bewilderbeast for this long in decades… I don’t know how to exist here.”

“You can go back, you know,” Gobber said, although it tugged at something deep and sad inside of him to say so. “Hiccup won’t hold it against you. He would understand, better than anyone.”

Valka shook her head. “Someday, maybe,” she said. “But not now. I know that Hiccup will make a wonderful chief, and I know that he has so many people to support him. Maybe he doesn’t even need me. But I don’t think I could live with myself if I left him again. Not after he just lost Stoick.”

Gobber swallowed hard. “We’ll both be there for him, you and I,” he said. “He’s a strong kid.”

“I know.” She rested her head against Gobber’s shoulder again. “Thank you for raising him, Gobber.”

Gobber laughed slightly, but didn’t protest. Whatever guilt he felt about taking Valka’s place in Stoick and Hiccup’s life, it didn’t change the truth that Hiccup was like a son to him, always had been. Even before Valka’s disappearance, Gobber had loved that boy with every ounce of his being.

Because he was Stoick’s boy, and Gobber had never stopped loving Stoick.


	4. End

Gobber and Stoick’s relationship didn’t end with Alvin’s exile, but it was definitely the beginning of the end. Without Alvin, Stoick’s little gang began to disintegrate.

Although Spitelout had ultimately taken Stoick’s side during Alvin’s trial, he only grew more distant and resentful over the years. Gobber was glad that Snotlout and Hiccup were friends, that they hadn’t let Spitelout stoke the flames of the Jorgensen-Haddock war he wanted.

And although Gobber didn’t leave Stoick’s side, something changed between them. Stoick truly felt that he had failed Gobber that night, allowing the Monstrous Nightmare to take his arm, allowing Alvin to almost take his life.

It didn’t matter what Gobber said—Stoick’s shame ate at him, pulled him away, and combined with his renewed vigour to defeat the dragons once and for all, to prove Alvin wrong, Stoick became someone Gobber almost didn’t recognize anymore. So serious, so reserved, so… stoic.

Maybe Stoick could have come back from the brink of who he was becoming, but not a month after Alvin’s exile, after Gobber lost his arm to the Nightmare, the dragons attacked with another ferocious onslaught.

Stoick had told Gobber not to fight, that he was still recovering, still weak. But Gobber had never been good at listening to the word _no_ , and he’d been growing frustrated with Stoick over the past few weeks.

So he’d grabbed a sword in his left hand, his right arm still bandaged, and ducked past Stoick’s imposing frame in the doorway.

“Get back here right _now_ , Gobber!” he remembered Stoick shouting after him, furious.

“I’m not your _pet_ , Stoick!” he’d shouted back, and then he’d lost himself in the crowd of Vikings outside, searching for something to kill.

He lost his leg that night. It was no one’s fault. No Alvin, no treachery. Just Gobber, too confident, too distracted, and a dragon that was a little bit too angry, or maybe just hungry.

As the dragon’s teeth sank deep, too deep, into his leg, just before he lost consciousness, he remembered thinking that if he died, at least he wouldn’t have to see the look on Stoick’s face when he realized that he’d failed him twice.

Of course, Gobber didn’t die, but waking up to find his leg missing wasn’t any easier than losing his arm.

* * *

He lost Stoick not long after.

Gobber hesitated to call it a breakup. Neither of them ever sat the other down and said _it’s over._ They simply spent less and less time together. Stoick wrapped himself up in his chief duties, only ever left his house to bark orders and scowl. Gobber convalesced in his own house, and gave Stoick’s place a wider and wider berth.

Months became years, and at some point, Valka learned to tame the beast that Stoick had become. Gobber watched him thaw and soften under Valka’s care.

He should have been jealous, even angry, and part of him was. What could Valka offer Stoick that Gobber hadn’t been able to?

But mostly, Gobber felt relieved. He still loved Stoick so much it hurt, but now that Stoick was with Valka, he didn’t have to wonder. Didn’t have to wonder if, one day, Stoick would come back to him, only to break his heart again.

And Gobber liked Valka. He always had. Even after Alvin left, and Spitelout pulled away, and Stoick froze himself to the world, Gobber and Valka stayed friends. She was mysterious and strange and funny and kind, and Gobber still remembered every long night they’d spent together, when Gobber would work away at the forge while Valka told him stories of far off lands that sounded too fanciful to be true.

When Stoick and Valka got married, Gobber stood at the front of the crowd and cheered the loudest, and didn’t let himself think about how it hurt.

And slowly, with Valka by their side, Gobber and Stoick rebuilt their friendship. The three of them spent endless nights together, laughing and dancing and drinking in Stoick’s house. Gobber fought dragons at Stoick’s side, traded tales with Valka, sang drinking songs to their little brown-haired baby boy. He reveled in the warmth of their combined presence, Stoick’s and Valka’s and Hiccup’s.

But even this peace wasn’t made to last.

When Valka disappeared— _died_ , they’d thought at the time, because what was being carried off by a dragon if not a death sentence—Stoick was broken. Any warmth that Valka had rekindled in him was gone, and Gobber didn’t know where to begin to bring it back.

So he did what he could. He moved in with Stoick, to care for that little brown-haired boy that Stoick couldn’t seem to look at the same way anymore. He pulled Stoick out of his darkest darks. He tried to fill their house with some kind of levity, if not for Stoick, then for Hiccup. The kid didn’t deserve to grow up with a dead mother and a father who lived in darkness.

Maybe Gobber had learned a thing or two from Valka over the years. Or maybe he’d always had what it took to help Stoick, somewhere deep inside himself. Or maybe it was just time itself, always marching forward, always changing.

Because Stoick did thaw again, eventually, though never completely. He was always harder after he lost Valka, always sterner and more demanding, especially towards Hiccup. But he came to love his life again, or at least to value it. And he came to love Gobber again, too.

Just as they had never really broken up, they never really got back together. Not officially. They never married—Gobber knew that it would have felt like a betrayal to Stoick, like he would be losing Valka all over again—but they didn’t hide their relationship, not from Hiccup or from the village.

Gobber had no official title, but he filled the role that Valka would have if she’d stayed—always at Stoick’s side, helping him both to run the village and to raise Berk’s heir.

And did Gobber ever have his hands (well, hand and hook) full with that job.

It wasn’t so much that Hiccup was a trouble-maker—he was nothing like Stoick’s little gang had been when they were his age—but rather that he never did anything the _right_ way, or at least the way Stoick wanted it done.

If Hiccup had simply run around causing mischief, like those Thorston twins or Spitelout’s boy, maybe Stoick wouldn’t have minded so much. But it was Hiccup’s insistence on doing everything in his own convoluted, often doomed way that drove Stoick up the wall.

Personally, Gobber had never found Hiccup to be much of a menace. He was creative, if a bit arrogant and pig-headed. If anything, he reminded Gobber of Valka, both of them just different enough in their way of thinking to set the rest of the village on edge.

Of course, Stoick probably saw Valka in Hiccup, too, although he never said it. And when Stoick saw Valka in Hiccup, Gobber was sure that what he saw was how Valka’s way of thinking had gotten her killed.

And maybe, just maybe, Stoick saw a little bit of Alvin in Hiccup, too. Just different enough to turn on his own people.

When Stoick looked at Hiccup, Gobber was sure that Stoick saw everything and everyone that he had lost.

* * *

For fifteen years, Gobber had played peacekeeper between father and son. How many times had he wanted to tell Hiccup about Valka, about Alvin? But Gobber had always felt like it should be Stoick telling Hiccup those stories, not him. And the more time passed, the less it felt like those stories really mattered. Stoick was the way he was—did it matter why?

So Gobber took Hiccup under his wing, and he raised him the only way he knew how—not the way Stoick would, or the way Valka would, but the way Gobber would. The way Gobber did.

And Gobber was proud, so incredibly proud, of how that kid had turned out, of how much Hiccup had already accomplished, and how much more he knew Hiccup would accomplish as chief.

He was glad, too, that Hiccup and Stoick had grown closer in the last few years. That Stoick hadn’t died before Hiccup could realize what an incredible man his father was. Before Stoick could realize what an incredible son he had.

Gobber blinked out of his half-asleep thoughts once more. He realized that Valka was humming again, and that he recognized the song. It was the same song that she had sung in the caves with Stoick, only days before.

The tune twisted something inside Gobber, a deep, longing nostalgia.

He cleared his throat, then joined her, humming along.

She looked over at him, seemed surprised that he was still awake.

“I missed that song, you know,” she said softly, then hummed another few bars of it. “I didn’t realize I missed singing until I got to sing again.”

“You didn’t sing to your dragons?” Gobber asked, raising an eyebrow. Singing to dragons seemed like a very Valka thing to do.

She laughed. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “Just tunes, though, never with words. After a while, I didn’t really need words with the dragons. It feels a bit strange, to be talking so much.”

Gobber didn’t think they were talking very much at all, considering the circumstances. He had so many things he wanted to ask her, so many things he wanted to _tell_ her, but he didn’t know where to start. It was easier to sit in this half-asleep peace and let his memories overtake him wordlessly.

There was one thing he felt he had to say, though. One thing he needed her to know.

“I’m glad you two found each other again,” he said. “You and Stoick. Even if it wasn’t for long enough.”

Her eyes widened in brief surprise, and then her face softened. “Oh, Gobber.” She reached up to touch his face again. “I never meant to come between the two of you, you know. Not back then, and not now.”

Of course, there was no _now_ , not without Stoick, but Gobber knew what she meant.

He reached up to cup her hand with his own.

“I know,” he said. “You never did. I think Stoick always needed you more than he needed me. I was just happy to be there when you couldn’t be.”

Valka shook her head. “That isn’t true. He needed us both, I think. You were just the one who stayed.”

“Will you forgive me?” he asked softly. And this was it, the thing he’d been wanting to ask her all night, the thing he needed to say, though he hadn’t quite realized it until this moment. “For taking your place?”

She blinked up at him, seemed truly surprised by his question. “My place? Gobber, my place is out in the world. With the dragons. With the wind. Here, on Berk? By Stoick’s side? By Hiccup’s? That has always been yours.”

His eyes met Valka’s, then looked away. He could hardly breathe around the tightness building in his throat.

And then he was crying, great heaving sobs. Stoick’s funeral pyre danced through his head, and Valka held him.

He hadn’t cried yet, not properly. He hadn’t wanted to cry in front of Hiccup, hadn’t wanted to make the kid feel worse than he already did, and every time he’d been alone, he’d only felt numb.

Now, finally, he could cry. About Stoick’s death, and everything before it. About every loss, every guilt.

And Valka would hold him. And when she needed to cry—about Stoick, about everything—he would hold her, too.


End file.
